"Monza." He tried to tug his filthy collar straight, but his hands were shaking too badly to manage it. "I must confess I heard you were dead. I was meaning to take revenge, of course—"
"On me or for me?"
He shrugged. "Difficult to remember… I stopped on the way for a drink."
"Smells like it was more than one." There was a hint of disappointment in her face that pricked at his insides almost worse than steel. "I heard you finally got yourself killed in Dagoska."
He managed to lift one arm high enough to wave her words away. "There have always been false reports of my death. Wishful thinking, on the part of my many enemies. Where is your brother?"
"Dead." Her face did not change.
"Well. I'm sorry for that. I always liked the boy." The lying, gutless, scheming louse.
"He always liked you." They had detested each other, but what did it matter now?
"If only his sister had felt as warmly about me, things might be so much different."
" ‘Might be' takes us nowhere. We've all got… regrets."
They looked at each other for a long moment, her standing, him on his knees. Not quite how he had pictured their reunion in his dreams. "Regrets. The cost of the business, Sazine used to tell me."
"Perhaps we should put the past behind us."
"I can hardly remember yesterday," he lied. The past weighed on him like a giant's suit of armour.
"The future, then. I've a job for you, if you'll take it. Reckon you're up to a job?"
"What manner of job?"
"Fighting."
Cosca winced. "You always were far too attached to fighting. How often did I tell you? A mercenary has no business getting involved with that nonsense."
"A sword is for rattling, not for drawing."
"There's my girl. I've missed you." He said it without thinking, had to cough down his shame and nearly coughed up a lung.
"Help him up, Friendly."
A big man had silently appeared while they were talking, not tall but heavyset, with an air of calm strength about him. He hooked Cosca under his elbow and pulled him effortlessly to his feet.
"That's a strong arm and a good deed," he gurgled over a rush of nausea. "Friendly is your name? Are you a philanthropist?"
"A convict."
"I see no reason why a man cannot be both. My thanks in any case. Now if you could just point us in the direction of a tavern—"
"The taverns will have to wait for you," said Vitari. "No doubt causing a slump in the wine industry. The conference begins in a week and we need you sober."
"I don't do sober anymore. Sober hurts. Did someone say conference?"
Monza was still watching him with those disappointed eyes. "I need a good man. A man with courage and experience. A man who won't mind crossing Grand Duke Orso." The corner of her mouth curled up. "You're as close as we could find at short notice."
Cosca clung to the big man's arm while the misty street tipped around. "From that list, I have… experience?"
"I'll take one of four, if he needs money too. You need money, don't you, old man?"
"Shit, yes. But not as much as I need a drink."
"Do the job right and we'll see."
"I accept." He found he was standing tall, looking down at Monza now, chin held high. "We should have a Paper of Engagement, just like the old days. Written in swirly script, with all the accoutrements, the way Sajaam used to write them. Signed with red ink and… where can a man find a notary this time of night?"
"Don't worry. I'll take your word."
"You must be the only person in Styria who would ever say that to me. But as you please." He pointed decisively down the street. "This way, my man, and try to keep up." He boldly stepped forwards, his leg buckled and he squawked as Friendly caught him.
"Not that way," came the convict's slow, deep voice. He slid one hand under Cosca's arm and half-led him, half-carried him in the opposite direction.
"You are a gentleman, sir," muttered Cosca.
"I am a murderer."
"I see no reason why a man cannot be both…" Cosca strained to focus on Vitari, loping along up ahead, then at the side of Friendly's heavy face. Strange companions. Outsiders. Those no one else would find a use for. He watched Monza walking, the purposeful stride he remembered from long ago turned slightly crooked. Those who were willing to cross Grand Duke Orso. And that meant madmen, or those with no choices. Which was he?
The answer was in easy reach. There was no reason a man could not be both.
Left Out
Friendly's knife flashed and flickered, twenty strokes one way and twenty the other, grazing the whetstone with a sharpening kiss. There was little worse than a blunt knife and little better than a sharp one, so he smiled as he tested the edge and felt that cold roughness against his fingertip. The blade was keen.
"Cardotti's House of Leisure is an old merchant's palace," Vitari was saying, voice chilly calm. "Wood-built, like most of Sipani, round three sides of a courtyard with the Eighth Canal right at its rear."
They had set up a long table in the kitchen at the back of the warehouse, and the six of them sat about it now. Murcatto and Shivers, Day and Morveer, Cosca and Vitari. On the table stood a model of a large wooden building on three sides of a courtyard. Friendly judged that it was one thirty-sixth the size of the real Cardotti's House of Leisure, though it was hard to be precise, and he liked very much to be precise.
Vitari's fingertip trailed along the windows on one side of the tiny building. "There are kitchens and offices on the ground floor, a hall for husk and another for cards and dice." Friendly pressed his hand to his shirt pocket and was comforted to feel his own dice nuzzling against his ribs. "Two staircases in the rear corners. On the first floor thirteen rooms where guests are entertained—"
"Fucked," said Cosca. "We're all adults here, let's call it what it is." His bloodshot eyes flickered up to the two bottles of wine on the shelf, then back. Friendly had noticed they did that a lot.
Vitari's finger drifted up towards the model's roof. "Then, on the top floor, three large suites for the… fucking of the most valued guests. They say the Royal Suite in the centre is fit for an emperor."
"Then Ario might just consider it fit for himself," growled Murcatto.
The group had grown from five to seven, so Friendly cut each of the two loaves into fourteen slices, the blade hissing through the crust and sending up puffs of flour dust. There would be twenty-eight slices in all, four slices each. Murcatto would eat less, but Day would make up for it. Friendly hated to leave a slice of bread uneaten.
"According to Eider, Ario and Foscar will have three or four dozen guests, some of them armed but not keen to fight, as well as six bodyguards."
"She telling the truth?" Shivers' heavy accent.
"Chance may play a part, but she won't lie to us."
"Keeping charge o' that many… we'll need more fighters."
"Killers," interrupted Cosca. "Again, let's call them what they are."
"Twenty, maybe," came Murcatto's hard voice, "as well as you three."
Twenty-three. An interesting number. Heat kissed the side of Friendly's face as he unhooked the door of the old stove and pulled it creaking open. Twenty-three could be divided by no other number, except one. No parts, no fractions. No half-measures. Not unlike Murcatto herself. He hauled the big pot out with a cloth around his hands. Numbers told no lies. Unlike people.